Shape is dead, long live interfaces. And please, go live in interfaces.
Showcasing 18 visions for 18 key sites punctuating the South-Korean capital city, “Superground Seoul: Living Infrastructure” narrates the results of a consultation launched in the last months by the Metropolitan Government, inviting a selection of international designers to operate a “recognition of hidden figures of the urban territory” — as told by Manuel Gausa, curator of both the exhibition and the process itself.
Strong provocations, positioned statements; still, no utopia. The 18 projects match the interest of the government in recent processes such as Reinventing Cities, Reinventer Paris (2016), Grand Paris (2008) and Hypercatalunya (2003), all animated by the reinterpretation of space through architectural visions, as a critique to the evolving city.
The goal is to rethink a hyper-infrastructured urban system by unfolding the potential of infrastructures as powerful compressors of the main themes characterizing contemporary cities in their last urbanization phase. Such nodes become multi-program relational platforms: in their given shape, room and a central role are found for public space.
Superground Seoul. 18 visions for relational infrastructures
An international consultation rethinking the development of Seoul from its inner structures is illustrated by an exhibition and a book.
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- Giovanni Comoglio
- 25 October 2018
- Seoul
Eduardo Arroyo — NO.MAD, ENTROPITECTURE, Imun Train Depot, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Francis Soler with It’s and Michel DESVIGNE, Shoemakers’ Island, Songjeong Embankment, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Topotek 1, Yong, The Serpentine Galleries, Line 2 (Shindorim-Sillim), 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Charles Waldheim + Office for Urbanization, Heliomorphic Seoul: Bioproductive Models for Traversing the Han, Hangang Cheolgyo, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Yoon Gyoo Jang — Unsangdong Architects Cooperation, Urban Connector, Kyeongui-Jungang Line (Yonsei Univ.), 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Studio Fuksas (Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas) + Ramon Prat Homs, Urban Quantum, South of Yanghwa Bridge, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Chanjoong Kim, SEOUL LAPUTA: Self-developing linear city, Line 4 (Changdong-Danggogae), 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Eun Young Yi, SUPERCOLONNADE SEOUL, Jeungsan Ro, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
NL Architects, Yeongdeungpo Free Ways, Yeongdeungpo Rotary, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Alejandro Haiek Coll, Seoul Eco-Condenser :Self-Sufficient Environmental Apparatus, Naebu Expressway (Jongam), 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Yoshiharu Tsukamoto — Atelier Bow-Wow + Tokyo Tech. Tsukamoto Lab, Yongsan Body Culture Club, North of Dongjak Bridge, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
AZPML, High-Intensity Park Jungnang, Jungnang Water Reuse + Gunja Train Depot, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Minsuk Cho – Mass Studies, From Mountain to River, Hannam Daero, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Seung H-Sang, IROJE architects & planners, Habitable Bridge, Hangang Pedestrian Bridge, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Haewon Shin, Urban and Natural Multi-Habitat, Mangwoo Reservoir Park, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Willy Müller – WMA, SUPERCROSSING SEOUL, Yeonsinnae Station, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Federico Soriano and Dolores Palacios — S&Aa, Mapo Stackedscape Machine, Mapo Basin, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
Go—Up Architects, Urban Mountain Park, Myeonmok Basin, 2018. Courtesy Seoul Metropolitan Government
A re-scaled architectural object reaching the urban dimension such as the colonnade by Eun Young Yi; the vertical redistribution of fluxes of vehicles — like in a environmental project of design per components — proposed by NL Architects; maximization of a riverside highway as a foundation for a new inhabited island, reintegrating in the living city a so-far dead volume, as conceived by Francis Soler with It’s and Michel Desvigne; the intensification of a landscape device such as the park by AZPML or the axis by Minsuk Cho connecting mountain and river in one coherent system of environmental quality. All the proposed visions are accelerators for a dense civility, for a city that enhances the potential of relationship between people as citizens, civites, by exploiting the promiscuous coexistence of buildings, environment and infrastructure.
As remarked by Paolo Mezzalama from It’s, an unprecedented value form “Superground Seoul” lays in the position of Metropolitan government, joining a large power of realization to a high interest in self-redefinition, and in the crucial role of architecture in addressing and matching such interest. Architects are back on the front row, but in a new way, as also confirmed by Gausa in describing the composition of the consultation team: inspired by complicity rather than competition, all participants are encompassed by a somehow transgenerational awareness of the epistemological change of the realm of architecture: architecture nowadays is about reuniting people and ideas, not developing mere shapes anymore (“Postmodern is dead”) but interfaces, structures that can connect landscape, people and information in a proper habitat, built on relationship as a building material.
- Superground Seoul: Living Infrastructure
- Young Joon Kim, Manuel Gausa
- AZPML, Eduardo Arroyo — NO.MAD, Chanjoong Kim, Eun Young Yi, Studio Fuksas (Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas) + Ramon Prat Homs, Go—Up Architects, Haewon Shin, Alejandro Haiek Coll, Minsuk Cho – Mass Studies, Willy Müller – WMA, NL Architects, Seung H-Sang, IROJE architects & planners, Francis Soler, It’s, Michel Desvigne, Federico Soriano and Dolores Palacios — S&Aa, Topotek 1, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto — Atelier Bow-Wow + Tokyo Tech. Tsukamoto Lab, Charles Waldheim + Office for Urbanization, Yoon Gyoo Jang — Unsangdong Architects Cooperation
- Seoul Museum of Architecture and Urbanism
- 119 Sejong-daero, Jung-gu, Seoul
- 15 - 31 October 2018
- Seoul Superground (to be published by Actar)